"I don't like illusions, I can't see them clearly."
More Sick Puppies lyrics. I'm stuck today; it's hard for me to nail down a single "top of my mind" issue to muse with because my cluttered mind is breeding the promised madness ...
~~~
I tell myself that I'm a ritual kind of girl, that I like ruts. I think that's because usually I have zero of them in my life. My coworker comments upon the activeness of my social life. My mother comments upon my constant state of motion. My friend comments on my prolificness. And so when I get a moment to sit, to reflect and do nothing but veg, those moments are treasured and rare.
But they don't make me feel alive.
I'm an ENFJ in the world of Myers-Briggs; that's Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging, for the uninitiated (I'll give you some links below). As such, I get my energy from people, my muse from people, my barometer from people, and my opinions from people. As a writer, I use that ENFJ programming to be a Watcher, an Observer, and then a Recorder, so to speak. Which leads me to spend a lot of time in my head, journaling, writing stories, and to fuel that, I have to have interaction and experiences. Not illusions. The real McCoy.
A fellow writer friend used to argue passionately with me about whether or not something we wrote about had to be really experienced by us, the authors, in order to lend it credence and authenticity. Back then, I was in the camp of "Imagination is enough." If the imagination is strong and capable, and I'm articulate, then I can convey an image, event, or impression as if I were there, without having to truly be there. He was adamant that the best writing was informed by actual experience. His most compelling argument was about extreme sports; he said I could never capture the choking rush of bungee jumping or the thin-headedness of alpine hiking if I'd never done it myself.
At the time, I disagreed with him completely, but now I think maybe he was right. However, I've still never bungee jumped, and I've never alpine hiked. I don't feel called to DO it, so I don't feel called to WRITE about it.
I DO feel called to write about a lot of other things, though, and so that brings me back to the troublesome tilly of "what do I have to experience/endure/enter" in order to bring authenticity to my writing? I think that I fuel my own Muse by creating relationships with other people. I need it to feel alive; I need it to inspire me. Ruts are really anathema to me, they could kill my creative self, and I think I know that in my more lucid moments. So while I think I pine away for the quiet moment, the artist's retreat, I know that what I really need is the exact opposite: interaction, friction, collision.
This need to know/feel/believe/remember is surely part of why I feel duty bound to dissect illusions. Because later, when I'm stoking the fire of creative burn and getting inside the body and mind of a character, I need to understand everything I can about cause and effect, origin and outcome. And match to tinder.
Even if it's something I have never done and know I'll never do.
Links:
Myers-Briggs: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator